Haus of Malec
by Sapphyre7
Summary: Clary is starting her new job as Alec's PA. Join Clary as she embarks on an adventure with many firsts. Will she be able to live up to Alec's expectations? How will she deal with Alec's demanding siblings? Will she survive working in such a notoriously catty business? Time will tell.
1. Chapter 1

**Hello everyone! Alongside my Perfection Incarnate story I have been developing a couple of other ideas and I think the time has come to post a few of them. Don't you worry your pretty little heads though, I am far from done with Perfection Incarnate and will be updating all of these stories equally. Here's a chapter to set the scene for this one and I really hope you like it! Feedback is welcome as always and I hope you enjoy!**

I must have looked at myself in the mirror at least ten times. My bed was covered with rejected jackets and I couldn't help but wish my mum hadn't went to work so early. Who knew that getting dressed could be so stressful? Jon was standing in the doorway, cup of coffee in hand, an amused look on his face.

"What are they called again?" He asked as I modelled another blazer. This was the one.

"Magnus Bane and Alec Lightwood." I responded, looking for my sketchpads to put them into my bag. I ran through a quick checklist in my head to make sure I had everything.

"So which one do you have a crush on?" I shot him a look. "Seeing as you're going to all this trouble."

"Neither! They're married – to each other!" I laughed.

"Ohh…" Jon nodded, going for a change in conversation. "You'll do fine Clary. How many people did you get the job over again?"

"About 100." The thought made me nervous – what if I failed? What if I didn't live up to whatever it was they had seen in me?

"See! You'll be great. Now get going, you'll not want to be late." Grabbing my bag and my phone, I gave Jon a quick cuddle before heading out to the car. Throwing my bag on the passenger seat, I hopped into the driver's seat steadying myself, a few quick positive words. I quickly tied my hair back before getting the car running and starting my way over to Magnus and Alec's. The drive through the grounds themselves seemed to take longer than the rest of the drive, nerves heightened the entire time. I'd met Magnus during the interviews but not Alec, even though the position was as Alec's PA. I checked the time when I reached the driveway – I still had ten minutes to spare. It was now or never. Grabbing my things, I put my phone away in my bag and headed up towards the house. It was massively intimidating. The door was answered really quickly by none other than Alec himself. He was dressed quite casually smart, a suit jacket with jeans. He looked at me neutrally.

"Clarissa, I assume?" He asked, holding the door.

"Yes, Mr Lightwood." I tried to act confidently.

"Please." He laughed, his demeanour rapidly changing. "Call me Alec. Come inside my dear, lots to do." I followed Alec through the house and into his personal study. He offered me a seat, taking the one opposite.

"So, tell me a little bit about yourself." He was resting his head on his palms, looking at me curiously.

"Well you have my cv and my personal det-"I started.

"I want to hear it from you Clarissa, please." He smiled. "Indulge me."

"Well, I live with my mum and my brother. My mum works in an office and my brother is in school on a football scholarship. I love art and part of the reason I took this job was to save up to go to art school whilst being amongst icons in the industry. I wasn't sure I'd get it actually, I haven't exactly got loads of experience but there you go. Sorry, I'm babbling." I smiled, blushing.

"Lesson number one Clarissa, never put yourself down. Now, onto the job. I'm sure you're aware of the duties but I'd like to go over them again anyhow. First off we have all the dull stuff. The phonecalls, the appointments, emails and dealing with clients. You're a smart girl from what I've heard, I doubt you'll have much trouble. Then we have the more difficult aspects. As our job is in the sphere of creativity, creativity can strike at any time and I need you to be here when it does, within reason. That's why I employed you, specifically. I like creative people and I like having them around me. Then finally we get to the fun stuff – exhibitions, galleries, events – you'll be invited to them all. I think that's it for now. Let's get you acquainted with the house, shall we?"

"Let's go." I smiled, following Alec from the room.

Once the tour was over and done with, Alec and I came to rest in the lounge. Rest being the opportune word as the house was huge!

"This is your work phone." Alec handed me a cell phone that was a lot better than my actual one. "And this is your personal laptop."

"I can't – " I started.

"You can and you will. You need a high spec laptop to keep up with everything Clarissa. It's easier for note-taking." He smiled. "Everyone's number that you will need are already logged into the phone including my family. They ring often and sometimes pointlessly. Brush up on your excuse making and I'll love you forever." He winked.

The first half of the day consisted of scheduling the week ahead, booking in Alec's clients and introducing myself to them. It all went without a hitch. It was lunchtime when 'Isabelle' started calling.

"Haus of Malec. Alec's line. Clarissa speaking – how can I help?"

"Uh hi – Clarissa. This is Alec's sister, is Alec there?" I looked up at Alec who was on making pasta and mouthed 'Isabelle'. He shook his head.

"Sorry Isabelle. Alec's with a client at the moment – could I take a message?" Isabelle groaned.

"Tell him I'll be coming around later, he can't avoid me forever." Once she had hung up, I repeated the message to Alec prompting a similar groan. Magnus entered the room a few moments later, wrapping his arms around Alec.

"How's our newest addition to the Haus getting on?" Magnus asked, smiling.

"Coming on leaps and bounds." Alec smiled at me, as Magnus pecked his cheek lightly.

"Remember you have that meeting with that up and coming artist later – try not to scare him off." Magnus winked, backing out of the room.

"Nice and easy first meeting to get your teeth sunk into." Alec commented, eating his pasta out of the pan.

"Who is it with?" I asked, pulling out my diary so that I could note it.

"Verlac, I think is his name." Alec said. "He'll be here at 1." There was a knock at the door at exactly 1 o clock. I pulled the door open to reveal a dark haired man dressed in a luxury suit.

"Mr Verlac?" I asked.

"The one and only." He smiled, pushing his hands into his jacket.

"Please come through. Mr Lightwood is waiting in the lounge." I closed the door behind him, leading him through to the lounge. Alec stood up to exchange pleasantries before they sat opposite one another.

"Is that your natural hair colour?" He asked me randomly as I was opening up my laptop.

"Uh – yeah." I smiled, taken off guard. Alec seemed amused.

"How fascinating. Sorry Alec – where were we?"

I kept my head buried in my laptop the entire meeting, mainly to avoid the odd look from Mr Verlac. Once the meeting was over, Alec and Mr Verlac exchanged phone numbers promising to meet again later in the week. I led him over to the door to show him out.

"Thanks for stopping by Mr Verlac – we hope to see you later in the week."

"Please – call me Sebastian. Mr Verlac is what my accountant calls me. See you soon." He smirked before heading back to his rather expensive looking car.

I was absolutely exhausted when I got home an hour later than I should have. Dropping my shoes on the floor, I padded through to the kitchen to hunt out some food. Jon was standing in the kitchen the hob filled with pots and pans.

"What's going on in here?" I asked, removing my jacket.

"You just sit over there and be quiet." Jon smiled, indicating to the table. Footsteps on the stairs alerted me to my mother's presence.

"Clary!" She embraced me. "How did it go?" My mum was in her comfy clothes as she sat down at the table next to me.

"It went." I laughed. Jon tutted.

"Stop putting yourself down! Look – I made your favourite!" Jon came over to the table, placing down food for the three of us. Just as we were mid-conversation, my work phone started ringing. I apologised, excused myself and grabbed my phone, heading to the bottom of the stairs.

"Mr Lightwood's PA speaking, how can I help?" I hit myself mentally for not checking the ID first.

"Hello Clarissa – just me." It was Alec. Boy, did I feel like an idiot. "If you're not too busy, could you perhaps come back over in an hour?" I agreed. "Fantastic. Bring an overnight bag if you'd like. See you soon."

"I have to go back to work in an hour." I told my mum and Jon when I re-entered the room.

"Think about the money Clary." Jon smiled. After dinner, I quickly rounded up an overnight bag before freshening myself up. Alec was quick to answer the door when I knocked, leading me straight towards the studio. He was now dressed in a pair of jogging bottoms and a loose fitting t-shirt.

"Remember what I said about creativity?" He said when we arrived.

"I'm guessing it struck."

"Bingo."

It turned out that Alec had had the perfect idea for the Verlac project and Magnus had went out of town. The Verlac project required dresses and lots of them for a modelling shoot based around the seven deadly sins.

"I'm thinking we separate colours out for each different sin. Make sure that you can recognise the differences immediately. Each photograph you see, vastly different from the one you saw beforehand." Alec babbled, sketching with a pen. Still in my clothes from earlier, I was having a difficult time getting comfortable. "Did you bring PJs?" Alec muttered, still sketching. "Change into them if you like." I headed into the bathroom, changing my clothes quickly. "Hopefully we can have at least two designs done for Mr Verlac coming back. Here – pick a sin – do a design or two and we'll feedback."

I chose gluttony and kept to pink bubblegum tones, making the dress extremely ruffled so that it puffed out from the waist. Each fold was filled with sweets of all different varieties. I designed a matching headband and started annotating. Alec didn't' speak for a whole hour.

"Ready to feedback?" He finally asked, his hair tousled.

"Yeah – I chose gluttony – just in case you don't get it." As soon as I got a look at Alec's picture it was obvious that he had chosen envy. The green jumped from the page. The dress was tightly wrapped around the models body, a snake-like clasp at the waist. The dress had slight imperfections that highlighted the idea of envy.

"This is really –"

"Fantastic." Alec finished. "I think we have our working designs for these two already – I can't believe it." I allowed myself to smile. It was only the first day but already this job was perfect. "Do you want to design another initial idea each or are you tired?"

"We'll do another. I think it'll impress Mr Verlac if we have four initial ideas so early on."

"Great minds."

An hour or so later, we were feeding back again. Alec had picked pride. The dress was blue and had sheer material that covered the throat, shoulders and arms. Every inch of the sheer material was covered jewels, of different sizes and shapes. A large bow decorated the hair of the model. My design was that of lust. I chose alarm red and went for a floor-length design. It was very figure-hugging and had a cut out section near the cleavage that was low but tasteful. The hair would be gelled back from the face.

"I can't believe it. Four designs in as many hours. Go and have yourself a good night's sleep. You deserve it. We'll reconvene at 10 o clock and I'll send Mr Verlac a message to let him know where we are. Thank you for all of your help tonight – I'll show you to your room."

"My room?"

"We always keep a room spare for our PA's, for this very purpose." The room was lovely and larger than my own at home. I quickly fell asleep that night and slept peacefully until my alarm at 8:30am. After a shower and a quick change of clothes, I set out in search of Alec. I came across a random man first. He was very arty looking with long dark curly hair that was tied at the base of his neck.

"Hello – are you here for an appointment?" He asked me.

"No." I laughed. "I'm Mr Lightwood's PA." A look of realisation dawned upon his face.

"Oh what a pleasure to meet you. I'm Jordan – Magnus' PA."

"Clary." I smiled, shaking his hand. "Have you seen Alec?"

"Last I saw him he was in the lounge – welcome to the Haus Clary, it's lovely to have you here."

Alec was going over our designs in the lounge, annotating and looking at fabrics on his laptop.

"Good morning." I smiled, perching myself on the sofa and opening my own laptop.

"Good morning, I was wondering if you would do me a favour this morning Clarissa." Alec said before running me through the collage boards he wanted making up for each of the dresses before Mr Verlac came back at 3:00pm. He told me I was welcome to use Jordan for help as Magnus himself wasn't back until 4pm. I left the lounge my arms laden with papers, so much that I had to balance them underneath my chin. I didn't even make it to the bottom of the stairs with them as someone crashed straight into me, sending me sprawling amongst the papers on the floor.

 **Thank you for reading my first chapter! Not a whole load of action but I hope you enjoyed it anyway! All of my love, until the next time! ~Sapph**


	2. Chapter 2

**Thank you to everyone who reads my stories, I really do appreciate every single one of you who follows, favourites, reads and reviews. Thank you ( :**

It came as quite a surprise to me when the person who'd bumped into me hadn't offered me a hand back up. Never mind that, they'd vanished as quickly as they'd appeared. I silently gathered up my papers and hastily made my way upstairs out of the way. Jordan was relatively easy to find, mooching around in the spare study. He was quick to agree to help me and directed me down the hall towards the library. All sorts of materials were waiting for us, it was like paradise. Once we were settled with our boards in front of us, Jordan and I started talking.

"So have you met any of Alec's family yet then?" He questioned, a funny look on his face. I looked back at him with a puzzled expression as I ruffled some pink fabric.

"I've spoken to Isabelle on the phone but aside from that, not really."

"You're in for a treat." He laughed, picking out different sized stones.

"Go on." I laughed, annotating my design.

"Well we'll start with Isabelle since you've already spoken to her. She's a handful to say the least. Not in a bad way, mind you. She's just very inquisitive. She likes to know what's going on. She's the reason you have your job essentially considering she sussed out that Alec's previous PA was stealing. A word of advice – don't piss her off because there's no coming back from that."

"Noted." I laughed, feeling somewhat intimidated. I much preferred Isabelle when she was just a voice on the other end of the phone.

"Then there's Max. He's a character. He's harmless but don't let him near your work-phone or your laptop because he'll schedule meetings, he'll delete meetings and he'll generally create chaos. I've learned about that one the hard way!" I smirked but made note of the advice, part of me wanted to know the rest of the story.

"Then there's Jace. He's like a mixture of Isabelle and Max. He loves chaos. Loves causing it, loves being amongst it. I'm surprised you haven't bumped into him yet, he's usually never away from the place."

"I might have bumped into him before, in a very literal sense." I thought back to before when someone had sent me flying alongside my papers. I told Jordan.

"That sounds like him." Jordan agreed, trying to unstick his fingers from the glue on the collage. "He usually comes into my room when I'm away and rearranges things just to nark me. It'll always be something little and pointless but I can always tell when he's been in there."

"That sounds annoying. Does he not have a job to go to?" I asked, genuinely interested.

"Nah, he's minted. Maybe he'll start aggravating you with you being the newbie and all." I shot Jordan a look, pouting.

"I bloody hope not." I protested, Jordan laughed.

"I doubt you'll be saying that when you see him. That's usually the case."

I laughed out loud. "I really don't think so. Its work, work, work for me. No antics."

Jordan and I finished in good time. I thanked him before hunting out Alec in the kitchen. He was eating out of a pan again, what looked like rice.

"Is this becoming a problem?" I joked, setting the collages down on the table.

"Shh – you saw nothing." Alec smirked with his mouthful.

"Whatever you say, boss." I laughed, feeling more at ease after our informal sketching session last night. Alec pointed the spoon at me winking, before grabbing a few more mouthfuls of his rice. Alec quickly got himself straightened up when we heard a knock at the door, taking the boards through into the lounge. I straightened my skirt, heading over to the door. Mr Verlac was stood waiting in a light grey suit, sunglasses adorning his eyes.

"Good afternoon Mr Verlac. Please come through." He smiled widely at me, reaching up and removing his sunglasses slowly.

"I'm sure we've already had this conversation my dear. Call me Sebastian." He smiled. "Please." I nodded, leading him through to the lounge. Alec had set the boards up onto little easels, and Sebastian's attention was immediately peaked as soon as he crossed the threshold. He headed straight over to the easels and Alec gave me an approving glance. Sebastian finally spoke after a good 20 minutes of analysing the images.

"How? How did you get these done so quickly?" He asked Alec bemused.

"I had a little help." He smiled in my direction momentarily. "But these are just the initial designs. I can make you up some test samples for the trial shoot based on these designs and we'll see where we are."

"That sounds perfect. I hope you don't mind me overstepping my mark but I'd very much like you both to attend the trial shoot. I think it would be very insightful for the both of us." Sebastian smiled at Alec, Alec returned his smile but I could see the confusion behind his eyes. Alec and Sebastian spoke amongst themselves for a while, bouncing ideas back and forth, all of which I noted down on my laptop just in case they came in handy down the line.

"So, Clarissa. What else are you apart from a PA?" Sebastian asked me as I was showing him out.

"Uh – I'm not sure. Hopefully an artist one day." I shrugged, not liking the spot light being on myself.

"Interesting. You're definitely in the right crowd then." He smiled, putting his sunglasses back on. "I look forward to seeing you later in the week. Until then I bid you adieu."

I was just closing the door after Sebastian when I felt a firm pressure on the other side of it, nearly knocking me backwards. A pair of golden eyes latched onto mine through the gap in the door. In that moment, he'd managed to shimmy the door open and was stood in front of me inside the house.

"You may want to close your mouth." He muttered lightly, his index finger pressing my chin up lightly. "It's not polite to stare." I snapped around, shutting the door and moving my face away.

"Excuse me, do you have an appointment?" I questioned, following him down the hall. He laughed heartily as I tried to keep pace with his long strides.

"No." He said, turning around just long enough to smirk at me.

"Jace, I'm assuming?" I suddenly cottoned on, planting my heels into the floor. He turned around to face me, bounding back across the hallway.

"Now that's not fair. You know my name but I don't know yours. Hold that thought – Shorty? No, that's not it. Ginge? Hmm, not feeling that either. Red! There we have it." He looked really pleased with himself. My hand sprung to my hip as I looked at him unimpressed.

"Very creative of you. Well done." I smiled, sarcastically before heading upstairs to grab my stuff so that I could finally go home. I didn't expect him to follow me.

"I like that. You've got a little bit of spirit about you."

"That doesn't give you more reason to antagonise me."

"In my books it does. I can see you being more amusing than Jorgie." I rolled my eyes, I could only presume he meant Jordan.

"Nope I'm boring – dreadfully boring." I muttered, heading into my bedroom to grab my bag. Jace uncaring followed me right through.

"Don't worry, I can change that."

"Do you mind?! I need to get changed." I grumbled as he made himself comfortable on the bed.

"Go right ahead." He joked, resting his hands behind his head.

"Do you not have anything better to do?" I sighed, just throwing my bag onto my back. He looked as though he was thinking about it before shaking his head.

"Nope, where are you going anyway?"

"Home." I said bluntly, heading back into the corridor. Jordan was there and he looked at me sympathetically. Jace followed after me, bumping into Jordan on his way.

"Jorgie! Have you found the difference yet? It's a cracker this time, I promise you!" He slapped his shoulder as Jordan stomped off to his room to go and rearrange whatever it was that Jace had done. Alec was still in the lounge when I finally got downstairs, Jace still biting at my heels.

"Alec, I'm off home now alright? I've got my phone and everything if you need me." I smiled, before heading out of the house. Jace was unrelenting, standing in front of my car as I climbed in. I gave him a few minutes to get bored but he was unflinching. I wound my window down.

"If you don't get out of the way, I will mow you down." I threatened as Jace smirked. "Really hard."

"Ooh baby, I love it when you talk dirty to me." He teased and I wanted to repeatedly slam my head off the steering wheel. Thankfully my prayers were answered when Magnus' car pulled into the drive. A few moments later Magnus was at Jace's side, whispering a few words in his ear before he bounded off towards the house without another word spoken. Magnus came over towards me.

"Sorry about him. He's harmless really – he just has a very strange sense of humour."

"Its fine, I think I can handle him."

"I'm sure you can. I'd just like to thank you for keeping my husband company last night. He gets a bit lonely sometimes, so again I appreciate it. If you ever need anything, don't hesitate to ask Clarissa. We're here to help you as much as you are to help us."

When I got home that night, Mum was out somewhere.

"Jon?" I called out, turning on lights as I went. It was strange going from Alec's house where so much was happening to my own that was silent. Concluding that no one was home, I made my way into the living room, shoes in hand and sprawled myself out on the sofa, glad to just be able to relax.

"RAHHH!" A voice screamed, grabbing me from over the back of the sofa. I screeched the house down, whacking the hand with the shoe I was holding in my hand.

"Ow Clary." Simon moaned from behind the couch. I climbed onto my knees, peering over the top of the sofa.

"Simon! What are you doing?" I barked at him as he lay on the ground clutching his hand.

"Jon let me in about 30 minutes ago before he went to work. I did think you'd be back sooner and I guess I got a little more vigorous the longer I waited. My hand though Clary, you fiend! What is that job turning you into, you absolute monster!" Simon smirked, hopping over the sofa and into the seat next to me. He pulled my legs into his lap as I rested my head back onto the arm rest.

"I met an absolute monster today." I muttered, launching into the story. Simon was quick to give feedback and tactics that I could try out.

"I'm glad you decided to come over Si. This is exactly what I needed." I laughed, cuddling myself into the crook of Simon's shoulder.

"That's what best friends are for. I think we're long overdue a movie night – how about it?" I hastily agreed and shortly after we found ourselves heading up the stairs with a handful of snacks each. I changed into my pyjamas before we both lay on the bed on our stomachs, facing the television with our heads resting on a pillow each.

Just as we were getting to a particularly gruesome murder in the horror film we were watching, my work phone started ringing. I sighed, praying to god that it wasn't Alec asking me to go over tonight as I didn't want to let him nor Simon down. I quickly checked the screen.

 **JACE CALLING**

I grumbled at the phone, throwing it onto my bedside cabinet and letting it ring out. I wasn't going to let him aggravate me in my personal time as well.

 **Thank you to everyone who reads and reviews – you make my day!**

 **All of my love, until the next time ~Sapph**


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